INDIA BECKONS
Introduction
In 1967, it was Rishikesh in North India pulling me, after reading the LOOK magazine article on The Beatles and their Guru; in 1987, it was Poona in West India pulling me, after time spent with a friend who had spent 10 years living with a Guru. But, both times it was a “no-go”. My life went on, there was to be no travel to India, yet… and no gurus. My first trip to India waited until the year 2000. Suddenly, I decided I was going… a flyer about a pilgrimage came across my desk at work, and within 5 minutes I had phoned to book a place. I did the pilgrimage and 3 months of travel in year 2000, but I hated India! Then, by year 2004, it was the only place for me. I loved it. The most telling comment I have ever read about India was in the opening lines of Lonely Planet – India (2000): “Love it or hate it, you can never ignore India.”
How can you love open sewers; beggars tugging at your clothing; garbage everywhere; men using India as a latrine; constant harassment by vendors, "You buy!" or "Come! This way."and what strikes you as outright lies, when you try to get information. That’s what impinged on me my first year in India: That’s what I hated, let alone all the transportation hassles. Even with my third trip to India in 2005, for the first day or so I looked around and questioned, “Why am I here?” But, somehow before the third day was finished (as with the year before), I found myself humming, smiling at everyone, and just generally enjoying it all! Go figure… I still can’t tell you for sure: Why did I fall in love with India? It is now 2012. The love affair has ended, “Why?” I may go back, but I no longer have to go back.
I do know that one morning during my first week in India in November 2000, I was stunned into a shattering insight. It was an odd experience: I was awakened by a thunderstorm about 5 am, and it seemed so dramatic I had to go over to the windows. The sky was a menacingly deep, dark, black-navy. There was a real downpour, a full on hosing. Trees were switching back and forth in a gale; huge puddles forming instantly; thunder rumbled like the onslaught of an army; and lightening cracked with ear-splitting jolts, momentarily transformed the dark, menacing sky into a work of art, with its’ intense orange-yellow splashes. In minutes it was over.
Sitting in the stairwell, still startled, I peered through the grated windows, my gaze lingering. Gradually, my gaze fell on the street scene below. I watched a herd of goats passing, bells all a-tinkle; minutes later it was a local beggar rifling, with intense care, through the householder’s small pile of garbage across the street; soon the neighborhood black sow and her piglets sauntered along and rummaged through the garbage with great snorts and squeals; shortly after, the woman of the house where I was staying came out, crossed the street, and using her 3 foot broom of sticks, swept the garbage back into a pile again, and stared it burning. I sat fascinated.
What a re-cycling process! She had taken the previous day’s garbage out about an hour ago, and now there was only paper to be burned. I found myself smiling, “This is Life in all its’ Glory.” It seemed such a contrast to home, where we are so protected from the natural flow of Life: from a herd of animals on the street; from beggars and stray pigs in our neighborhood. The image of a ‘cereal package’ came to mind: We are so safely packaged… in our homes, office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, cars, planes! ‘Boxed cereal’ came to symbolize the sterility of our lives: the order, the cleanliness, the pretty homes and streets… our blank faces! Cardboard lives! In contrast, the faces of India are one of its’ beauties: they are vibrant, full of expression, and generally happy... full of life! I was shocked, not by what I was seeing in India, but how I began to see the western world. I was ecstatic with my sudden, “Love of Life”…India.Within seconds of that "Love of Life" came an image of a pure aesthetic wandering the mountain. Both images stayed with me. The paradox which is India.
Toward the end of that first stay in Thiruvannamali, there was another momentous happening: I got stunned into a three-hour sit in a cave, on the sacred mountain, Arunachula. What happened there? It was stifling hot! I dripped sweat (which I hate); and I sat on a concrete floor with stiff and painful arthritic hips… alone, in the dark. The rest of my pilgrimage group had finished their chanting and meditation long ago, but I continued to sit. I would say to myself, every now and then… “You can leave now, Paula.” But I stayed. The body was incredibly still; the mind very quiet… words hardly formed. Unknown tears rolled down my cheeks, periodically. I wasn’t sad. There were no ecstatic thoughts or visions, just a stunned stillness and a feeling of fullness. I could say I have never felt so ‘complete’. Perhaps this was the critical moment, the one that brought me back to India.
Also, my life changed upon my return from India: my job finished; early retirement was a possibility; my ability to create goals disappeared; life seemed to limp along with no direction. The image of myself in the cave returned… and returned. I started various projects, including a small private practice, but nothing ‘took hold’. I kept telling my self that I did not have to return to the cave; that it was simply an experience. I knew ‘the where’ was not the critical issue in life. I knew that life’s potential could be realized right where I was, in my own backyard. I finally gave up. Against my better judgment, I went back to the cave… and my love affair with India began in earnest.
I went back… and back… and back… as often as I could. At one point, my mother asked if I was planning to move to India. “No. Definitely, not.” was my answer. I had noticed the transplanted Westerners. They did not appear to me to be a happy crew. When I reflected on the possibilities of living in India, it did not appeal. Westerners seemed to become a bit bizarre: neither Westerner, nor Indian. I would say that living in India is not a good fit for most Westerners. Over time, it does not seem to suit us: the chaos, including the indiscriminate graft, and political corruption; the ‘roles’ and thus the rather formalistic way of life; living with the learned dependency of those in ‘low’ positions, particularly in the country. It finally, at one point, gets us down. We balk, often becoming angry and isolated, or we give in and turn ‘native’. In the short term, with intermittent breaks, we can flourish. At least, I did.
What follows are the ‘journals pages’ I wrote home, to family and friends during the years I did winter retreats in India. My joy with India is evident. It was a love affair… I loved everything I saw, both the good and the bad… a numinous experience that left me glowing. However, as I was seemingly ‘kicked out’ of my Western life, I was later to be ‘kicked out’ of my Eastern life. Like most love affairs, I would not have missed the experience. I gained from it. And I am now glad to move on: Note the ‘Musings’, which I started to write in 2010, following my final days in India.
PS: There is a parallel story to the journals about day-to-day life in India, which is the one about my spiritual life. I have left it untold, except for snippets here and there, that seemed integral to various stories. One-day… maybe.
